y 



HON. S. S. COX 



BEAUTIES OF DIPLOMACY. 



Bastiat relates that happeniiig to be iu Madrid he went to the Cortes, whom ho 
found discussing a treaty with Portugal, for improving the navigation of thoDaero, 
which flows between Spain and Portugal. A deputy rose and said: "If the Duero 
be made navigable, transportation will become cheaper. Portuguese grain will bo 
sold at a lower price in Spain, and a formidable com])etition to our national industry 
will thus be established. I ojjpose the project, unless the ministry so increase the 
taritf as to create a balance of trade." The Assembly found his argument unan- 
swerable. 

" Three mouths after," continues Bastiat, "I was at Lisbon. The same question 
was submitted to the Senate. A noble hidalgo remarked : ' Seiior President, the 
project is absurd. Ton guard at great expense the banks of the Duero to i)revent 
Portugal being invaded by Castilian grain, and at the same time you wish, like- 
wise at great expense, to facilitate this invasion. I cannot be a party to such in- 
consistency. Let our children receive the Duero as wo received it from our 
fathers.' " 

In the United States, while physical science is striving to make ocean navigation 
suier and safer, and mechanical invention is striving to render transportatiou 
cheajier and swifter, our legislation is working to oppo.se and nullify these eiforts. 
Is it wise to expend capital to remove natural impediments, and tlien to spend capi- 
tal and labor to replace them by artificial impediments? 





Glass_Lii-'Z^ 
Book__±Cj_^ 



ir 



BE A ITT IE S OF DIPLOilIACY. 



SPEECH ^2/f 



HON. SAMUEL S. tJOX, 



OF NEW YORK, 



HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVES, 



FEBEUAEY 9, 1S7G. 



"A yoTitLful, Tehemcnt, exnltaDt, and progressive nationality. The hopes, 
the boasts, the pride, the universal tolerance — the gay and festive defiance 
of foreign dictation — the flag— the mnsic — all the emotions — all the traits, all 
the energies that have won^ their victories of war and their nairacles of national 
advancement.'— EuFUS Choate. 



TV.A.si3:i:NrGTo:>r 

1S7C. 



ETgi 






^ SPEECH 



HOX. SAMUEL S. COX, 



The House, as in Committee of the "Whole, having iinder cousideratiou the bill 
(H. E. Ko. 15!)4) niakiug appropriations for the consular and diplomatic service of 
the Government for the year ending June 30, 1877, and for other purposes — 

Mr. COX said : 

Mr. Chairjiax : I think the House and the countiy should be con- 
gratulated upon the unanimity Tvith which this hill comes from the 
Committee on Appropriations. If I understood correctly the hon- 
orable gentleman from Mississijipi, [Mr. Sixgletox,] vrho reported it, 
there was no dissent in the committee as to its provisions. If I am 
wrong in that statement, I can be corrected. 

This is a bill for retrenchment. It is one of many ; for many of 
similar import are to come. It i>roposes a reduction of some $436,000 
upon the appropriations of last year for foreign purposes. 

It was said by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] the other 
day that our aA'erage expenses for diplomatic and consular service for 
many years had been about .$1,300,000. In lr?59 these expenses had 
grown to $912,000 ; atui the average since that time has been about 
^1,200,000. To be more exact, let me quote the exact figures : 

Our diplomatic and consular expenses for the year ending June 30, 1859, were only 
S912.120; for the year ending ending June 30,'l860, they were |il,047,745 ,- for the 
vear ending June 30, 1861, they were ^1,158,330 ; for the year ending June 30, 1862, 
they were §1,260,544.31 ; for the year ending June 30, 1863, they were 11,235,889.89 ; 
for the year ending June 30, 1864, they were §1,260,544.34 ; for the year ending June 
30, 1865," they were"^l,3.54, 100 ; for the year ending June 30, 1870, they were §1,110,734; 
for the year ending June 30, 1871, they were SI, 041, 347. 

Last year they were about .$1,400,000. I do uot count the extra- 
ordinary sum, $1,929,817, that was embraced in the bill to pay the 
British mixed commission awards. This year we propose a reduc- 
tion of at least $436,000. It should l>e and it is done intelligently. 
I deprecate the remark made yesterday by my honorable colleague 
[Mr. Wood] that this reduction is without wise consideration. Sir, 
it has had careful examination. Why, Mr. Chairman, in my expe- 
rience in this House for over sixteen years, I have never known an 
appropriation bill to be presented with more prudence aud heed. 
We are acting upon authentic information given in advance. This 
is ajjparent from the speech as well as the report presented by the 
honorable gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. Sixgletox.] He gave us 
a report to accompany his bill, upon which he spoke wisely and well. 
He even gave us a map of South America to illustrate the proximity 
of those Spanish American states aftected by the provisions of the bill. 
In addition to that, we have had the studious examination of the Ap- 
propriation Committee to show most amply the relations, commer- 
cial and otherwise, we bear abroad, and especially to the South Ameri- 
vcan states. 



THE rROPOSED REFOHM. 

The reform proposed is succinctly stated, in the report of this com- 
raittee. I quote from the report to show the scope of this retrench- 
ment : 

In these [South American] repwhlics. as will be seen, the bill recommends a very con- 
feitlerable chanue in diplomatic representation. Following the example established 
by the act of Jiily 1 1 , 1870, combining the representation at Taraguay and Uruguay, 
and the act of May 22, 167-2, placing all the Central American states in the charge of 
one minister, the committee have concluded that no important interest would suffer 
by the dropping of two of the ministers now in Government service, and combining 
the diplomatic representation at Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador in one person, to reside 
wherever, in either of those states, the President may direct. The representation 
in the states of Chili and Bolivia is also combined, thus dispensing with another sal- 
ary of f 10, 000. Paraguay and Uruguay have been attached to the Argentine Ee- 
pu'blic, saving another salary. The miuister to Greece has been dropi)ed as unnec- 
essary, and in lieu a fourth-class consulate established at Athens. The minister 
to Hayti has also been thought unnecessary, and a fourth-class consulate estab- 
lished at Cape Haytien in Uen thereof. The bill discontinues two envoys extraor- 
dinary and four niinisters resident, forty-foui- consuls and officers of lesser grade, 
reduces the salaries of the ministers at Great Britain, France, Germany, and Rus- 
sia 13,500 each : those at Spain, Mexico, Austria, Brazil, Jai>an, and China ^2,000 
each ; that of the minister at Italy S-1,000, and those at all other jilaces, with the ex- 
ception of the minister representing the United States at the Central American 
states, ¥1,000 each. Many consuls fiave been thrown into a lower grade, and other 
reductions have been made. The total of this change has resulted in a reduction of 
the bill §435,837.50 below the appropriation of lastryear, and within a trifle of the 
same amount below the estimates from the Department upon which the bill is 
based. 

It is no answer to this bill, and its provisions for retrenchment, to 
say that it destroys our commerce or shackles our navigation. That 
is not a fair nor a logical argument. In no single particular, as will 
he shown before we get through with this discussion, has there been 
any abridgment in the consular or diplomatic service which does not 
run hand in hand with commerce and navigation and which does not 
subserve the best general interest. 

I know the bill strikes in certain places. This report shows exactly 
how much our niinisters are to be curtailed, how much their salaries 
are to be reduced, and how many consulates are to be abolished. 
You will find it all in this record, and I need not refer to it in detail. 
It also shows where we strike the "contingencies," and the "loss by 
exchange," and the item as to seamen to which the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Garfield] adverted, and as to which the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Sprixgee] gave such a conclusive reply, based on proper 
data. 

IIO.ME ECONOMIES. 

This retrenchment is entitled just now to the consideration of this 
House. At the present time we are not quite well enough oif at home 
to maintain our foreign relations abroad in such a superb manner as 
Ave used to do ; nor can we, nor ought we to, ape the manner of other 
nations in the splendors and excesses of oiu- diplomatic display. We 
can well understand why, owing to our greater commerce, in 1859 or 
1860, or even before those years, we might have paid more for this 
service. But when you, sir, send yoiu- boy out from your home, 
while you yourself are not very "well to do" in your domestic cir- 
cumstances, can you atford to have him live quite so well as if you had 
a good exchequer ? Although gentlemen may say that we are not pay 
ing our ministers enough according to the old standard, are we not 
paying them enough according to the standard of domestic, if not of 
foreign, economy? 

It is not alone becau.se we would save millions by this policy of re- 
trenchment. But we have a duty to do in showing where millions 



by the hunrlreds, might have heeu saved iu the past ten years of prodi- 
gal rule. More than that. It is a part of the process of summoning 
hefore the high and popular court of impeachment those who have 
squandered our resources, and who did it at a time when the war- 
fevered and war-worn patient was endeavoring to convalesce. In 
order to prescribe remedies for restoration and to make a diagnosis of 
the ills wherewithal we were afflicted, we must omit no scrutiny. 
We must stop at no persuasive call, however honeyed, to desist. 

The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Garfield,] who made a masterly 
address to us, pregnant with tigures and sense, has told us that he 
knows how hard is the task of cutting down api^ropriations. He 
speaks from experience. He knows the " local pressure" of interested 
parties who desire to "swell appropriations." He also confesses that 
every Executive Department here "tends to enlarge the field of ex- 
penditure within its jurisdiction." He commends the resistence to 
such pressure which is proper to be made and which our committee is 
making. Why, then, does not he throw his sword into the scale iu 
favor of this gallant band of committeemen ? He itemizes certain 
points where reform is or will be proper. There is the fortification 
bill, public works and buildings, rivers and harViors, and many civil 
establishments in Washington "overgrown by the work thrown on 
them by the war." He would reduce these ; ay, ten or fifteen mil- 
lions below the appropriations of last year. Ah ! indeed ; who was 
the chairman of appropriations last year ? What party did he lead 
when we plead against abuses ? "Work thrown on them by a war" 
ten years ago ended ; and is he just beginning to find out, uucler a new 
rule here, that ten or fifteen millions jier year might have been saved? 
A hundred and fifty millions not saved ! Were they squandered since 
the war? If, then, it appears as the sequel, when the House shall 
have concluded its money bills and the Senate shall have received or 
rejected our reforms, that forty millions a year might have been saved 
during ten years, what sad words of tongue and pen will be his "might 
have been." Four hundred millions squandered in ten yearsi What 
is there to show for it ? A hapless people living beyond their income 
and devouring their capital; want; lack of labor; depression of 
business and perpetual dreail of panic ; and worse ! 

Was there ever a time Avhen economy was so needed, so demanded 
by popular depression and misery ? The gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. SiXGLETON] told ns that his own section was so overtaxed and 
overburdened with debt that it was almost impossible for them to 
obtain the necessaries of life. This is too true all through the South. 
How is it in tlie West ? My friend from Ohio [Mr. Yaxce] handed 
me a paper with an account of the " bread brigades " forming in Law- 
rence County, Ohio, in which there is a sad picture, only equaled iu 
its terrible reality by what is daily and hourly too frequent iu the 
great metropolis I represent. If in Mississippi the once beautiful 
l)lantations are " now neglected and growing up iu sedge-grass," what 
must be our condition when the cry for " bread " makes the peninsu- 
lar part of Ohio an object of sympathy and beneficence ! 

THE sheriff's FLAG. 

If in the South the " sheriff's flag " floats above the hammer of the 
auctioneer of estates and men and women are losing their properties 
under such compulsory processes, what must we think of prosperous 
Pennsylvania ? A Philadelphia paper insists that the condition of the 
laboring class in that city and in all parts of the country is deplora- 
ble ; that from fifty thousand to seventy thousand persons formerly 
employed at manufacturing in Philadeli^hia are now out of work. 



6 

A distinguished member from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] baspiib- 
lished the statement that thousands of his constituents, including 
men, women, and children, theretofore employed in manufacturing, 
had been practically idle since 1873, and that so dreadful and pro- 
tracted had been their poverty that they were grateful for the crusts 
given to beggars, and that thousands of able-bodied workmen had 
been forced to become tramps, seeking for food they had no opportu- 
nity to earn. These statements, detailing the wretched condition of 
the unemployed workmen of Pennsylvania, are confirmed by Senator 
Wallace. I notice also that sixty thousand miners of coal are 
thrown out of employment in Pennsylvania. 

Is New England better oft? Whj^, even there they are laboring on 
half time and at the lowest scale of wages. 

THE FANCY ECONOMISTS. 

The gentlertiau from Pennsylvania [Mr. Eandall] was reminded by 
the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] not to boast 
when he i»ut on his armor, like him who taketh it olf. The gentleman 
[Mr. Gaefield] is a little interested, his amour propre is at stake, I 
fear, in keeping up the taxes. Was he not the author of many formei? 
bills ? He and his party, which for ten years would not touch the 
currency to resume and voted down propositions to economize, now 
all at once become urgent in their dire dilemma that we should resume 
and retrench whatever betides, but they are efjually opposed to us 
when we report bills in the precise "shape '' in which they come. Take 
any shape but this — of retrenchment ! " Oiu- honor is at stake," sighs 
the member from Minnesota, [Mr. Duxxell,] and he too is in '"entire 
sympathy" with reform; yet if we reform, alas! commerce will be 
ruined, or never arise from its ruins. Thus mourn other Jeremiahs ; 
and so every bill for retrenchment is opjiosed on some pretext or an- 
other. 

The unanimity of sentiment on the part of the opposition, who 
have si^oken under the lead of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Gar- 
field] in favor of economy, is only surjiassedby their concerted fail- 
ure to sustain it. Their mere words are " apples of gold in pictures of 
silver." They are not nittriiions, however beautiful. Hear a few of 
their sentiments! The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Monroe] says 
that " the object of this bill is 'retrenchment. I am most sincerely in 
sympathy with that object. I expect often to vote that way. But, 
sir, this hUl presents an unpromising field!" He went further and 
gave us his definition of economy. He would cut ofif any branch 
which was not wox'th the money. A¥ords — words — words ; sounding- 
brass and tickling cymbals. Then his colleague [Mr. Garfield] 
takes up the brass, and I mean no disrespect in using the expressiorj. 
[Laughter.] He draws the bees to his i>olitical assembly by saying : 
" O, there should be no politics in such bills ! Do I not sympathize 
with the committee in their laudable eft"orts to cut down expendi tm-es ? " 
And then he lauds to a pitch of irony the splendid economy for years 
of the State Department ! It is the old stoiy of the traveler out West. 
He meets a native on the Reserve — a skeleton, worse than the fancy 
photographs of the prisoners recently alluded to : " You seem, my 
friend, to have the fever and ague in these parts." " O ! no, sir," 
replied the man, shaking from crest to foot and yellow asocher — "No, 
there's-none-arouud-here, but plenty of it — in the next county ! " 
It is the old milk-sickness story. It is just a little further on! 
[Laughter.] These friends of economy cannot, like the man who ate 
his soup with a fork, get enough of it "in the abstract, but they are 



not so hungry for the concrete reality ! According to the proverb, 
by too large a grasp or embrace of the larger ideal, they take such 
a furious hold of the total thing that they fail to hold anything iu 
detail. 

ECONOMY— JUST NOT XOW. 

It will be curious to watch how their platoons will fire into onr re- 
trenchment bills. We have already had their attack on the West 
Point bill; but they had not the courage to call the ayes and noes on 
that. And the people, ay, and the very officers, now applaud the meas- 
ure. When it comes to this bill, a new set of assailants, and, I re- 
gret to say, fortified by the business tact and influence of my col- 
leagues, [Messrs. Hewitt and Wood,] appear upon the scene. But 
I venture to say that there will be no flinching upon the part of this 
majority on this measure when the debate is concluded and the scanda- 
lous abuses of the consular and diplomatic service are fully displayed. 
Soon we will have the fortification bill, and the opposition guns will 
thunder upon that. Then the river and harbor bill. That will appall 
the boldest. Then the war appropriations. Thundering Mars will 
roar till Janus will open his temple door. Neptime will sound his 
conch-shell from the very deejis, till the resounding shores echo its 
protest against the Navy bill. When the Indian bill a^jpears reduced 
to an honest diminution, the war-whoop will sound from Missouri to 
where rolls the Oregon, which i\sed to hear no sound save its own 
plashing. 

The burden of these loud complaints against these bills is that sal- 
aries are reduced. While the general shrinking of wages and values 
is going on everywhere, the clamor here is that large salaries secure 
good services. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. G^vp.field] struck 
this note : " Y.(m rfuly want rich men for office ; you woidd shut out 
those who caijffli ve without private fortune ; you would establish a 
plutocracy." Then my colleague [Mr. Hewitt] subjoins his practical 
remark : "In my extensive business I would pay men better for sim- 
ilar service;" and then my other colleague resubjoins his exclama- 
tion : " If this bill saved twenty millions I would not vote for it." 

It might be well, in answer to one of those gentlemen, [Mr. Hewitt, 
of New York,] to say that, as a plutocrat of the loftier and gentlest 
type of benevolence, he might well aftord to pay for his work what 
the poverty-stricken and panic-bedeviled people of this country ought 
not to pay. What he can afiord in his business this people cannot for 
their administration. The cost of living abroad is not the measure of 
foreign salary, but what is left at home to pay. Suppose, as the gen- 
tleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] argued, that in ten years the cost 
of living abroad has doubled, yet has it not more than doubled at 
home ? Who pay these salaries ? The plutocrats ; the rich who travel 
far countries for to see, and whose protection in travel and trade is 
the main object of diplomatic agency ? No ; the poor and needy. 
The rich men of this House, abroad, or in commerce, do not know 
and feel the burden. No one but the wearer can tell where the shoe 
pinches. Gentlemen cannot tell this who clothe their thoughts and 
their feet in slippered, luxurious ease, and feel no twinge except the 
luxury which comes of gout and prosperity. 

EARLY UXSALAKIED HONOR. 

"We cannot have good service abroad except on large salary ;" is 
that your argument ? Need I point you to our earlier statesmen, from 
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and others, down to our own selfish 
era. But my colleague, [Mr, Wood,] whose lineage by our Directory is 



8 

that of a Philadelphia Quaker, has said that Franklin honored this 
country as minister to the court of France, dressed in plain attire, 
and on large salary. Is it possible that he did not know the history 
of that mission of Franklin ? He went out to France in October, 1776. 
When he left Philadelphia, this is recorded of him by his biographer, 
(Sparks, volume 1, page 416:) 

As a proof of Franklin's zeal in the cause of his country and of his confidence in 
the result, it may be stated that before he left Pliiladelphia he raised all the money 
he could command, being between three and four thousand pounds, and placed it 
as a loan at the disposal of Congress. 

But it is further recorded of him that he served substantially with- 
out compensation ; ay, more than that, that he denounced the ambi- 
tion and avarice of public men as baneful to the state. I read from 
Sparks, volume 1, page 517 : 

It had long been an opinion of Dr. Fnanklin that in a democratical government 
there ought to be no offices of profit. The first constitution of Penusylvaiya con- 
tained an article expressive of this sentiment which was drafted by him. One of 
his speeches in the national convention was on the same subject. " There are two 
passions," said he, "which have a powerful influence in the affaii-s of men. These 
are ambition and avarice ; the love of power and the love of money. Separately 
each of these has great force in prompting men to action, but when united in view 
of the same object they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before 
the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall at the same time be a place of profit, 
and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places 
it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them 
are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, 
distracting its councils, huiTying it soinetiim-s into fruitless and mischievous wars, 
and often compelling a submission to dishoii(>ial)le terms of peace. And of what kind 
are the men that will strive for this profitable pre-eminence through all the bustle of 
cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces 
the best of characters ? It -ivill not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace 
and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It \>n\\ be the bold and the violent, the 
men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These 
•will thrust themselves into your government find be your rulers." * * * He 
thought the pleasure of doing good.by serving their country and the respect inspired 
by such conduct were sutticient motives for true patriots to give up a portion of 
their time to the public without a pecuniary compensation beyond the means of sup- 
port while engaged in the service. In his own case he had an opportunity of putting 
these principles in practice. All the money he received as president of Pennsylvania 
for three years he appropriated to some object of public utility ; and if the whole 
fifty years' of his public life are taken together, it is believed that his receipts in the 
form of compensation or salaries were not enough to defray his necessary expenses. 

What if his presence were to instruct these two members, [Mr. 
Randall and Mr. Wood, ] both natives of his Quaker City. To -yhich 
would he give a smile; to which a frown? At tirst liu.sh he. might 
sa.i" to one, "Sir, your jiresence in any assembly, your dignity, your 
abili y, the admiration you deservedly excite is sufticieut compensa- 
tior "or one so rich in lands and bonds." To the other he would say, 
"Go on! Read Poor Richard! Be just, be thrifty, be trustworthy; 
and a grateful people will add to the honor of your birth near the 
Hall of Independence Avith a crown of approbation ; for is not a good 
name better than riches ?" And to all of us he would say : " You are 
living in evil times, when men in public station make money and sala- 
ries the touch-stone of honorable service for their country. Jn my days 
it was considered ' decorous and sweet even to die for one's country.' In 
your day, it is considered decorous and sweet to live for one's country, 
and to live well, and gather from the brow of labor its sweat of i^earl 
to decorate the fantastic gaudiness of greed and luxury. 

UTOPIAX IDEAS. 

Mr. Speaker, it is said by Sir Thomas More that when the foreign 
embassadors came into Utopia the people of that perfect realm 



9 

laughed at the bedizeument aud jewels which glorified their persons. 
Benjamin Franklin, whose thought di-ew lightning from the cloud, 
and whose diplomacy broke the scepter of tyrants, must have read 
this satire, when in his snutf-colored dress and with his unsalaried state, 
he was made the welcome guest of the greatest of the Old World, 
while he kept his trust and faith to the i^eople of the New World. 

BRITISH POLICY. 

What is the argument to justify large salaries for diplomatic and 
consular service ? Why, Great Britain pays highly and does a large 
business over the sea and over the world. To be sure. Great Britain 
has an inexorable grip on these volcanic Spanish American republics, 
or upon most of them. I read to-day in a report made by a distin- 
guished gentleman from Illinois, [General Hurlbut,] who was our 
minister to Bogota, that the English government had a mortgage on 
the customs-dues of the republic of Colombia amounting to 85 per 
cent. He wrote home that unless there was some repudiation of that 
mortgage upon the customs-dues there would be a revolution in that 
country. Our Isthmus route is daily imperiled by English suprem- 
acy. There are I know large fields for enterprise in Spanish Amer- 
ica and in the Pacific. I do not deny the statements made by the 
gentleman ; and I would prefer if anywhere when retrenching, not 
to cut down in China and Japan any consulate ah'eady existing. 
But as to mortgaged Spanish America, what is the argument in favor 
of keeping up our diplomatic expenses to a high figure in those re- 
publics? The gentleman [Mr. Monroe] gave us a table. In that 
table he showed the area of those countries; he showed also their 
imports, exports, receipts, expenditures. He also showed the popula- 
tion and the public debt. What for ? To induce us to add salaries 
to our consuls? That is beautiful argumentation. The area of a 
country is to determine our diplomatic aud consular arrangements! 
If that is the case, why do we not have a minister to Iceland '? Why 
not a consul seated amid those great volcanic wastes where no man 
lives and where the lichen would starve ? Why do you not have 
diiilomatic accommodations with the interior of Africa or in the Des- 
ert of Sahara? If mere area is to be made the test, you will find 
plenty of room on our planet. , 

As to population, to be sure there is one-third of our own popula- 
tion in these Spanish American rejtublics. It numbers sixteen and a 
half millions, but most of it are Indians. They are not a producing 
class ; they are not the class of which we buy or exchange. They 
give us alpaca wool, guano, niter, ores, dyes, and other stufii's ; they 
give us medicines and hides ; but we have just as many consuls there 
to-day as we need for our commerce. That is the essential point. 

CONSULS AXD COMMERCE. 

But, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen mistake when they say this is a bill 
to revive commerce. Bills of this kind cannot revive commerce. Con- 
suls are incidents only to commerce. I will tell you soon where and 
how our commerce can be revived ; why your diplomatic and con- 
uslar system, instead of reviving commerce, amounts to nothing in 
this regard. It does not draw commerce along with it ; it is hardly the 
jolly-boat in the wake of the steamer. It is only a bubble in the 
wake of the steamer of commerce. 

What you want in order to make commerce and revive shipping in 
this country, is a fair revenue law. Your taxes should be removed 
from the ingredients which enter into our wooden and iron ships. Thus 



10 

you make it the interest of our people not to invest in bonds which 
pay no taxes ; but to invest in the vehicles of oceanic and distant ven- 
tures, which Avill pay more than the income on untaxed bonds. The 
competition of wooden and sailing vessels with steam and iron ves- 
sels I do not propose to discuss. The Baltimore clipper is a memory. 
India and China and their trade is greatly occupied by other nations. 
The old "Indiaman" is a myth. Comforts go with steam and divi- 
dends follow comfort. The simple truth must sooner or later appear, 
to wit : that the incidental protection to other interests has murdered 
our carrying trade. The internal-revenue tax of two and one-half 
cents a pound on cotton helped to cripple us as a sailing people. But 
the crowning ci'ime which has put gyves on our commerce is the tax 
imposed on all the ingredients which enter into the construction of 
ship and steamer. This, sir, is a bounty to the foreign producer and 
builder. It kills our comi)etition. Worse than the depreciation of 
currency, it deters capital and destroys euterjirise. If you will not by 
your bad taritts let us buy shijjs abroad, then let us by good tariffs 
buy the materials to make ships at home. Then you will revive com- 
merce, and navigation, and shipping. I see my friend from Penn- 
sylvania on the alert. He always is, when I mention ship-building. 
I know we have some enterprising ship-building in Pennsylvania. As 
we approximate in this country to the price of iron aln-oad, even with- 
out the aid of Government subsidy, but with a fair, honest revival of 
busiuess and lower tariffs, we may again have our old revival of ship- 
buildiug. Then navigation and commerce will begin a new century. 

But never until our tariff is modified, Mr. Chairman and gentle- 
men, will we have our olden ship-building. We have lost it already. 
I have the statistics here to show this in detail. Our tonnage to-day 
is only about eight millions of tons. Great Britain, that used to be 
our only rival, has sprung up to twenty millions of tons. I did not 
intend to read the statistics which clearly show what I have stated, 
but if the House will indulge me I will briefly give the details on that 
point referred to by one of my colleagues yesterday, in a comparison 
of business between the United States and Great Britain. In Great 
Britain the exports and imports amounted last year to over five hun- 
dred and fifty millions pounds sterling. Of this I am credibly in- 
formed. I know in previous years it was a little over this state- 
ment. In 1872 it was £608,000,000 ; but for the present year it is 
$2,750,000,000. The imports were not much in excess of the exports. 
In the United States there was but eleven hundred millions of this 
kind of prosperity, making a difference between the two countries of 
sixteen hundred and fifty millions. 

In Palgrave'sNotes on Banking, p.age 50, the imports and exports of 
England in 1819 are placed at only £69,000,000 sterling. In 1844, 
£144,000,000; but in 1872 what had they risen to? To £608,000,000. 
If they have fallen off any since, according to the former computation, 
it is because of excessive production and the consequent plethora. 

I have already shown you what is our tonnage as compared with 
Great Britain. I should be more exact as to American and foreign 
tonnage. Our commerce is in question, and our foreign affairs are in 
the quandary. 



11 



The following table sliows the amount of Americau and of foreign 
tonnage entered at ports of the United States for the years named: 



Tears. 


American 
tounage. 


Foreign 
tonnage. 


Exce.ss of 
American 
tounage. 


Excess of 
foreign 
tonnage. 


1830 


967, 227 

1, 576, 946 

2, 573, 016 
5, 921, 285 
5, 023, 917 

3, 066, 434 
3, 372, 060 
3. 550, 550 
3, 402, 608 
3, 486, 038 
3, 742, 740 
3, 711, 846 
3, 612, 631 


131, 900 
712, 363 

1, 775, 623 

2, 353, 911 
2, 217, 554 

3, 471, 219 

4, 410, 424 

4, 495, 465 

5, 347, 694 

5, 669, 621 

6, 266, 444 

7, 094, 577 

8, 033, 087 


835, 327 

864, 583 

797, 393 

3, 567, 374 

2, 806, 363 




1840 




1850 




I860 




1861 




3864 


404, 785 


1866 




1, 038, 364 


1868 




944, 915 


1869 




1,945,026 


1870 


2, 183, 583 


1871 




2, 523, 704 


1872 . 




3, 382, 731 


1873 




4, 470, 456 









We thus see that from 18G1 to the beginning of 1874, a period of 
only thirteen years, there is a change against the American shipping 
of 7,277,819 tons. Now our cai'rying trade costs us millions. It is 
reckoned at eighty or a hundred millons, which goes to England, 
France and Germany for the Atlantic freights and fares alone. 

Bat there are more facts of value for study and reflection. In 1860 
the total American tonnage which entei'ed British ports was 1,747,651 
tons, the total British tonnage entering our i>orts being 1,136,364 tons. 
But in 1870 the American tonnage entering the British ports was only 
479,670 tons, while vessels flying the British colors entering our ports 
during that year measured 2,778,823 tons. Herein we have greatly 
retrograded; England has greatly increased. 

COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY OF ENGLAND. 

Now, how did Great Britain get this advantageous power ? When 
did it come to her ? It came from her policy, her wisdom. Not be- 
fore the repeal of the corn laws, not before her reciprocity with 
France, not before free trade was fixed there ; for before that time, 
during six years, England took off almost as many taxes as she im- 
posed. 

But I must be more accurate : The taxes imposed by Parliament dur- 
ing that time (1836-1841) were £2,161,227. The taxes repealed in the 
same time were £2.131,303. During this time the postage was re- 
duced to a penny. That much was off, and we know the result. Did 
revenue increase? AVere expenses lessened and receipts increased? 
The revenues diminished nearly a half million sterling. Did the na- 
tional debt decrease 1 No. Discontent came; Chartists arose. Then 
free trade came and corn-laws were repealed. It was the triumph 
of Peel, Cobden, Bright, and Ebenezer Elliott. But 1852 saw the con- 
summation, and England then began to see through her mists and fogs 
her way to fiscal freedom. During the six subsequent years, or rather, 
to take a better era, from 1860 to 1866, the taxes imposed were £3,263,- 
215, and those repealed were— astounding fact ! — £ 19,209,863. Eighty 
millions of our gold dollars of a difference ; eighty millions of taxes 
reduced under liberal policies over the imposition of taxes. Then 
England leaped forward under some magic fiscal Magna Charta. The 
world wondered, and Cobden and Chevelier and the unselfish and ra- 
tional giants of economic thoaght everywhere received apotheosis. 



12 

I say here that the British taxes, imposed sis years after their 
free trade, were £"2,263,000 sterling. The taxes that were repealed 
were £19,210,000 sterling. In other words, we have a difference of 
£ 16,000,000 sterling, or more than $80,000,000 of taxes repealed or 
reduced over taxes imposed or augmented ; and the result was grati- 
fying to all the world, and especially to the British exchequer. It 
was "by free trade, by a liberal policy, by allowing all the world to 
trade with her, and Great Britain to trade with all the world, that 
she made this magnificent change and this great prosperity. And 
until we do as England allowed her citizens to do — buy our ships where 
we please, or allow our people to build ships without restriction and 
without prohibition of the articles which enter into the ships — we 
never can reach the degree of prosperity in the shipping interest 
which we had in 1859 and 1860. Moreover, Mr. Chairman, allow me 
to say that some of our best ship-builders agree as to that. I have a 
letter, which was published, from Donald Mackay, the great ship- 
builder of Boston, who said that if he had fair play in the taxing of 
commodities which enter into ship-building, then he could again have 
his ship-yard ring with its olden industry. 

TARIFFS AND COMMEltCE. 

But the main reason I have for dwelling on this subject now is that 
I may answer the gentleman from Minnesota, [Mr. Dunnell.] He 
said — (and he argued very astutely for a man who is about to seek a 
new election) that our tariff bill did not tend to retrench in one sense, 
but it levied more taxes in another ; and he called us to an account 
on this side of the House for that. He mentioned the tea and coffee 
tax, and the silk tax, and some other taxes. He asked me to respond 
to him. I will give his own reasoning on that subject, and then I 
will respond to him. 

"WTien I go to my constituency and say to them, " Gentlemen, "s^-e have reduced 
the expenses of the Government," they will say to me, " That is all very well ; but 
have you reduced this indirect taxation!" Of course I will answer, "O, yes; we 
did reduce it." They will ask me how, and I will tell them the simple story 
how we did it — the democratic House, I mean, for it will not have my vote. I will 
tell them that we have cut down the tariff ou .silks and silk dress-goods from 60 per 
cent, ad valorem to 40 per cent, ad valorem. They will sit in mute silence — 

These interesting and intelligent constituents will sit in mute si- 
lence when the gentleman makes that statement. No wonder they 
will sit in mute silence at the audacity of such a statement — 

but will ponder in their minds how that tallies with the theory that the luxuries 
of life shall pay the higher duties. 

SILK AND SMUGGLING. 

Will they if they are intelligent 1 Well, now, let us look at the silk 
business for one moment. That involves the revival of commerce ; 
for I say you cannot have that except you do take oft' your taxes in a 
revenue way. Why, sir, there is a man now in New York in Ludlow- 
street jail whose name is Lawrence. He has been put there for smug- 
gling—smuggling silks, which are easily smuggled, being very valu- 
able and small in bulk. He has stated — and it has come out in au- 
thentic form with respect to some of our best merchants who bought 
from him,— he has stated that he made contracts, or always could make 
contracts, to bring silks and silk goods into New York for 13 per cent, 
on the cost price. Well, what does he do with them or what is done 
with them by the men who bring them in ? Why they sell them— a 
thing not very creditable— they sell them to merchants who are re- 
putable, and then they sell them, and they pay 12 per cent. So there 



13 

is 30 per cent, gained on the goods by the smuggling. When the duty 
is 60 per cent, on silks there is a premium on rascality of 30 per cent., 
as the gentleman from Minnesota will see. Now, if we reduce the 
tariff on silk goods to 40 per cent, it takes away the incentive and in- 
ducement to smuggling, and we on our side of the House can say to 
the gentleman's mute constitiients, all of whom or some of them at 
least have silk dresses in their homes ; we can say then to the gentle- 
man's constituents when they sit mute, when they are pondering 
about these luxurious silk dresses, that we took away the incentive 
to smuggling by fixing the tarilf so that honest merchants can trade 
in New York as importers and as wholesale dealers and retailers. And 
then we will say, or rather we will insinuate in a quiet way, that 
after their own Eepresentative got all the facts of the case, he voted 
against that tariff on silk to help rascality in New York. 

Mr. BUNNELL. Will the gentleman' allow me to ask him one 
question ? 

Mr. COX. Very well, sir. 

Mr. DUNNELL. How much revision of the tariff will it require 
to do away with all the rascality in New York ? [Laughter.] 

Mr. COX. Well, about as long as the tariff-customs duties are col- 
lected by the gentleman's own party. I refer him to his own collector 
and President Grant & Co. [Laughter.] I will not go any farther 
West. [Laughter.] 

BREAKFAST. 

Now I want to say to my honored friend from Slinnesota, [Mr. 
Bunnell,] for I love to debate with a man so courteous and pleasant 
and who is merely seeking information for his constituents, I want 
to read to him what we are proposing in the tariff bill ; and first I 
will say that if we do raise the duty on tea and coffee a little by our 
tariff', we will take care to cut off enough of the tariff' in other re- 
spects where your bounties come in and where your gratuities are to 
make up the added duty on tea and coffee. Sir, the gentleman raises 
the old cry of the cheap breakfast-table. Now, we have disposed of 
that several times. Perhaps the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Bun- 
nell] knows that the present tariff taxes the spoon, the salt, the 
dishes, the table-cloth, and the table itself. We may reduce the tariff" 
on many articles, and if we do put a duty on tea and coft'ee, we shall 
then give you an honest, good breakfast-table on a purely revenue 
basis, without bounty, and invite you to come to take breakfast 
with us. 

NO SINS OF OMISSION. 

But the gentleman thinks that we are not in earnest about this 
tariff bill. You will see about that before the session is over. Be- 
fore we go further I will say that I shall be guilty of no sins of omis- 
sion. I will tell him where we propose to cut down : Cotton dresses 
from 61 to 30 per cent. ; spool thread from 81 to 40 per cent. ; cotton 
yarn from 60 to 40 per cent.; bar-iron from 40 to 26 per cent.; wire 
from 54 to 3"2| per cent. ; hoop-iron from .55 to 36 per cent. ; saws from 
40 to 27 jier cent. ; sewing-machine needles from 47 to 22 per cent. ; 
steel from 40 and 50 per cent, to 30 and 32 per cent.; screws from 60 
to 37 per cent. ; the poor man's iron pot from 45 to 32 per cent. ; lead 
from 45 to 22| per cent. ; cast-iron piping from 50 to 35 per cent. ; 
wool from 50 and 51 per cent, to 25 per cent. ; woolen flannels and 
blankets from 90 to 47 per cent. ; woolen cloth from 67 to 47 per cent. ; 
common alpacas from 70 to 50 per cent. ; clothing from 53 to 45 per 
cent.; carpets from 70 to 45 percent.; bunting (the dear centennial 
flag) from 112 to 48 per cent. 



14 

I know that it is uni>opiilar witli some people to save iiitlireotly. I 
know that a mau in Minnesota might sleep in cold winter weather with 
half a blanket with the i>rospect of getting three, but I think he 
would rather have two now rather than the prospect of a dozen in 
the future, or rather than have a tariff which gives bounties and sub- 
sidies to the prosperous, and does not give revenue. I have a list 
which I can show the gentleman which shows that where $100,000 
were collected as duties upon certain articles which went into the 
Treasury, a million of dollars go outside as bounties ; but I need not 
argue against bounties. 

I would ask my friend from Minnesota [Mr. Dunxei.l] whether he 
has not voted for subsidies and bounties and all that sort of thing ? I 
know that is his record, and therefore I can make no point on him 
for inconsistency when he votes for bounties under the tariff. He 
is not my man for that fight. Does he not vote for all such devices ? 
Does he not vote for railroad and other subsidies ? Why, sir, you are 
obnoxious all around on the question of subsidies and bounties. But 
we propose to make revenue and not give bounties. We would cut 
down marble from 129 to 40 per cent. ; gun and blasting j)owder 
from 60 and 58 per cent, to 40 and 24 per cent. And with this explo- 
sive article I close the list for the present, as by this time the gentle- 
man's theory must be blown up higher than Thomas's infernal machine 
has blown his victims in Bremen. 

It may be asked what reference this tariff talk has to the business 
before the House. How does it concern the diplomatic bill? Gen- 
tlemen have argued that we are destroying commerce. They pre- 
tend to be anxious to revive it. They would do it by giving certain 
salaries to consuls. If you mean to revive commerce take off the 
bounties we now pay to selfish and greedy people, and give fair inter- 
change of commodities. Let the people North, South, East, and West 
buy in the cheapest markets of the world, as we do among our States. 
Give them a fair show all around the world, and then we can take 
your southern and western cereal and cotton products, send them to 
European markets, and bring back something to help in time of need. 

FREE SHU'.S AND THEIR FRIEXDS. 

I do not know whether the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. DUN- 
NELL] was in Congress in 1872 or not ; I think he was not. I have 
looked up his record upon that point and I cannot catch him. I think 
he was not here in 1871. 

Mr. DUNNELL. After March 4, 1871. 

Mr. COX. In March, 1871, a bill was brought in here for the pur- 
pose of giving free registry to iron vessels of two thousand tons burden 
and over that might be bought abroad. It was just at the beginning of 
the Franco-German war, as you may remember. President Grant sent a 
message to Congress asking us to'permit these vessels to be bought 
and placed under our flag. It obtained the assent of this House. 
There was a large number of republicans for it. I do not think the 
name of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Dunnerl] is recorded 
on either side or as being absent ; I do not know how he voted. But 
we did carry that measure in the House and it dropped out some- 
where between the House and the Senate in the last days of the ses- 
sion. What was the result ? When that war broke out there were 
twenty-seven great German steamers, built upon the Clyde, lying at 
Hoboken. Their owners were willing, as the French navy was then 
powerful on the sea, to have them placed, temporarily at least, under 
our flag. What for ? So that thev could bear our cereal products of 
the West to Europe. 



15 

Mr. KELLEY. Did not that debate occur ou the last day and ia 
tli3 List hours of the session ? 
Mr. COX. It was in the morning of the 4th of March, 1871. 
Mr. KELLEY. So that the bill did not di-op out somewhere between 
here and the Senate. 
Mr. COX. I know it dropped out. 
Mr. KELLEY. It dropped out with the Congress. 
Mr. COX. And you voted against it and made a good speech against 
it : I remember that. I made a speech for it. 

Mr. KELLEY. I want you to tell the facts as they exist, and you 
profess to have examined the record. 

Mr. COX. I will make it all right if I have made a mistake. "WTiat 
I want to say is this : On the last day of the session , when the bill was 
brought in here, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] 
opposed it ; General Butlerfavored it, as a golden opportunity of states- 
manship to obtain the carrying trade of Europe during the Franco- 
German war. Then and there this House, ahnost two-thii-ds republi- 
can, failed to respond to the demand of vour President. It was the 
demand of economy and of enlarged intercourse with the commercial 
world. It was a demand, like that made in the Crimean war, which 
so redounded to the credit of our economy and to the prolit of oiu- 
people. 

Mr. KELLEY. Then the House did not pass it. You are now 
stating the record. 
Mr. COX. How is that? Just state that again. 
Mr. KELLEY. You have just now stated that the House passed 
It, and yet you say the House did not pass it. 

Mr. COX. It refused to lay the bill ou the table: that was the 
vote, I think. 

Mr. KELLEY. But the House did not pass it, as you have iust 
stated. ' 1 J 

Mr. COX. I believe that it did not pass it; but there was a test 
vote upon laying it on the table. I know it fell out. 

Mr. KELLEY. Yes ; and we aU fell out together, for Congress ex- 
pired. ° 

Mr. GARFIELD. One of the opponents of that bill was the Repre- 
sentative from the city of New York, the gentleman's own colleague, 
Mr. Brooks ° ' 

Mr. COX. I know that. 

Mr. GARFIELD. I greatly regretted to see him join in the oppo- 
sition to the bill, for I was in favor of it. 

Mr. COX. I know that; you have always acted in that line, and 
are one ot the free-traders in this House, though vou do not alwavs 
tell it out. ' ■' 

Mr. KELLEY. Now, if you want to correct the Record, you must 

^f *'n^^.^^"" "Misstatement that the bill passed the House. 

Mr. COX. The idea I want to convey to the House is that the bill 
was favored by the House; that by a test vote the House refused to 
lay -It on the table. 

did^^" f ^-'^^^^ • ^^^ said the House passed it ; the Record says it 

Af^' 2^^' ^^ '^^ "*^* material, the bill came up. 

Mr. KELLEY. If it is not material, why did you state if? You 
do not always talk nonsense. 

Mr. COX. I follow your example sometimes and sav a great many 
superfluous things. [Laughter.] But I never interject things into 
your remarks when you speak, without vour consent. 



16 

Mr. KELLEY. You do not ? 

Mr. COX. Without the consent of yonrsulf and the Chair. 

Mr. KELLEY. I cannot make any response to that. 

Mr! COX. I know you cannot by the rules ; for you are not on your 
feet. Now, what I wish to say and what I wish this House to under- 
stand is simply this: that there was an opportunity presented by the 
message of President Grant, and by the bill which was introduced, 
to give to the Western people an opportunity to ship their produce 
to lEurope during the time of that war. That war interrupted as 
well the producing industries as the commercial relations of the 
countries involved in it. I call attention to the fact that during that 
war when there was a great call for flour, wheat, and corn from 
Europe this measure was not passed. The republican Congress ad- 
journed, and even after the impressive speeches made by General 
Schenck and General Butler in favor of that bill, the commerce of 
the country failed to revive, by the acts of omission of the republican 
Congress, in despite of an urgent message from a republican Presi- 
dent. 

When I went home to New York City after that failure and saw 
those vessels laid up in Hoboken, I was satisfied by authentic proof, 
that there was a loss of $20,000,000 or |i25,000,000 to the people of the 
West, who had abundant grain then to send to Europe to replace the 
lack of production of and by the nations who were fighting a great 
duello on the fields of Eurox)e. 

THE WOSM IN THE A'"OKN. 

The point I wish to make on my friend from Minnesota [Mr. DuN- 
NELL] is this : That to revive commerce you must either let us buy 
ships or build them. If you will not let us buy abroad, place a tax 
per ton on the ship and let it come in and raise our flag. But there 
is a difficulty. What f Because that lets in iron cheaper ; and the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kellky] and his protectionist 
friends fight that. This point reminds me a good deal of what I heard 
once when traVeling in California. I saw some dead trees with holes 
perforated in them, and I asked my guide the meaning of them. He 
said they had been made by the woodpecker. I asked, "What for?" 
"To put in the acorn." "For food?" "Yes; for food." "Do the wood- 
peckers live on acorns here?" "No; they do not live on the acorn ; 
but in winter a worm gets into the acorn, and they go for the worm." 
[Laughter.] That is the way with you gentlemen who are protec- 
tionists. You do not want a revenue tariff" ; you do not want free 
shipping ; you do not want a revenue duty simply on tea and coffee. 
You will not stop smuggling by lower rates. You want, if possible, 
to raise taxes for protection, by bounties. That is the worm in the 
acoi-n. 

nU'LOJIACY AND RETRENCHMENT. 

But,Mr. Chairman, I pass from that business and come to the more 
agreeable task of making a criticism, if I can, of our diplomatic rela- 
tions. The gentleman from Ohio said he thought we might save $il0,- 
000,000 or $15,000,000 this year He was for retrenchment. O, they 
are always for retrenchment till the bill comes along that really em- 
braces retrenchment. When the military bill comes along they will 
howl for retrenchment— on the next bill f When the naval bill comes 
up they are for the next succeeding bill. AVhen the IndLan bill comes 
lip they will perhaps take scalps for retrenchment — on the next bill ! 
And when it comes to retrenchment on app^>priations for harbors and 
rivers then you will hear what some Englismnen call the " shrieks of 



17 

locality." Ou every bill bi-ought here oentlenien will find tliat they are 
abstractly iu favor of retreuchmeut while the great body of members 
on that side of the House, and some on this side, will be 'found voting 
the other way. Now, I jiropose to stand by my committee on this 
business. 

UTH^ITIES OF Dn'I.OMACY. 

But how are we treated abroad by our foreign representatives ? I 
do not want to pay anj^ more or any such salaries to men as are rep- 
resented in our public reports. I except Mr. Marsh, Mr. Washburne, 
and several others. I have looked through and through this diplo- 
matic correspondence to tind some good or great thing for our editica- 
tion as public men or for the advancement of commerce. I beg par- 
don ; I picked up this morning a dispatch from Liberia, in which the 
eminent minister there says that they have had but one kind of cur- 
rency in Liberia lately, that is the common copper cent, and that 
they propose to issue more money, paper money, and to make a loan 
of £30,000 sterling to float thegovernnient. But the government did 
not float, and it did not float on this copper-cent coinage. That is 
instructive. How much do we pay for this instruction? 

One of our ministers from Brazil writes to inform the sovereigns of 
America that the em])eror opened the Legislature "inmorethau'usual 
state, wearing a white-satin dress, his cape of plumes, a long velvet 
mantle and crown, and bearing his scepter even in his coach." This 
is extremely fine reading for a novel or a newspaper, but it illustrates 
the fact that toilet seems to be one of the great objects of diplomatic 
observation. How much do we pay for that ? Then we read in the 
recent published dispatches that the Emperor of China died of small- 
pox, and that our minister wrote back to his successor that all the 
American people were sorry for it. He also informs us, and it is a 
useful piece of information for the medical profession to ponder, that 
the two court physicians, because they did not cure him, had lost one 
row of their buttons and their peacock tails ! But our minister had 
not a kind word for the poor doctors, for were they not bound not 
only to make their kow-tow to the celestial majesty of the flowery 
kingdom but to his two majestic mothers! Again, we learn from a 
South American minister how they cure bull's-iiides there. 

I find also a dispatch from Greece where there is a description, and 
a very fine one, of the Grecian mode of voting for members of the 
chamber of deputies. ' They bring a long thing like a stove-pipe and 
the candidates hold up the stove-pipe. The suflragan takes a white 
ball or a black ball, runs his arm way down so as to keep his secret 
from all mankind and drops in an "ay" ora "no" for one of the candi- 
dates who holds up the stove-pipe. [Great laughter.] That is interest- 
ing for civil-service reform ! He says also that if one hundred nominate 
a candidate f(n- the chamber of deputies the candidate can run his 
stove-pipe anyhow, and this favors the third party men everywhere. 
It would suit some of our friends like our honorable professor over 
there who gave us the maxim Omneicjnotmn pro magnifico est. [Laugh- 
ter.] _ If gentlemen cannot understand when a hand goes in that way, 
how it comes out in another way and elects some one w horn nobody 
likes, it is only because it is too magnificent an improvement on our 
system sent to us from Greece at an expenditure of ilO.OOO a vear. 
[Laughter.] . "^ 

CHINESE AMNESTY. 

But, Mr. Chairman, there are other things to be learned. I will pick 
up our correspondence with China. It is a wonderful correspondence 
about the young emperor, Tung. He argues in this wav— I will have 
2c 



18 

to read it because it touches something so near the other side. 
[Laughter.] 

For more than ten years past, blessed -with the counsels of maternal love, we have 
striven to ri'iich tlie liisrhestpath. Happily it lias been so, that wherever the armies 
of tlie .state caiiic, the [Taipiii!,'] relicls (if Yneh (KwauLrtuiifi ami Kwan;isi) and the 
[;N'ieiiti] banditti wen^ vajniuislicd and .subdued before them, and the insui-jrents 
amouj; tlie Miaotse and the Mohammedans iii Yunnan, Ku t-iehau, and Sheusi have 
all been conquered and brought into submission. 

[Laughter.] 

Now that is pleasant reading, and I do love to read ■v^-llen we have 
to pay $17,500 for information. [Laughter.] I especially commend 
to the gentlemen who have not shown any inclination toward amnesty 
this extract : 

Tranquillity has been everywhere restored ; but, though the miseries of war have 
ceased, the injuiies and wounds of our people are not yet healed, and whenever we 
think of them it drives away all sleep aud repose. 

This seems to have been an occasion for a centennial amnesty in 
China. [Laughter.] 

It is equally our hope that all our minister.s and servant.s, both civil and military, 
in all parts of the laud, will unite in iiublic. spirited and l(i\al elbnts for tlie coiii- 
mon good, each zealously di.schaiging hi.s allotted duty, that tlius tliev may u))hold 
for our adopted successor a more and more glorious i tile. If this be done, the crav- 
ings of our breast will be assuaged. [Laughter.] 

That, Mr. Chairman, is one of the Confucian .sentiments we learn 
which is really useful. We ought to pay for it a large sum. [Laugh- 
ter.] I should like very much to go a little further into this book. 
Let me here ask the Chairman how much time I have left. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gontleman has fifteen minutes remaining 
of his hour. 

Mr. COX. My friend from Illinois when he was speaking passed 
over to me a most remarkable document. I should hardly believe it 
to be genuine lint for the authentic source — the State Department 
itself. Gentlemen say that there hasnever been an inquiry or investi- 
gation as to this particular diplomatic business. There never was 
such a handsome raking as this State Department has received this 
session by this democratic committee of investigation. It never had 
it before or since I have been here. It ought to have been done before, 
and you gentlemen on the other side of the House ought to have done 
it and received the credit for it. 

150KER AXI> DUOUTEUIE. 

I know gentlemen will vote for the bill after they hear that for 
a certain treaty about Turkey and its minister of foreign affairs we 
have paid 54,781 francs. Now, what was it paid for ? To corrupt 
Turkish officials ; to obtain from them a treaty ? Comment is useless 
to this House on such a scandalous outrage upon morality. It was 
paid by Mr. Boker to Safvet Pasha, minister of foreign affairs in 
Turkey, and his sou and household. But what for? To make a 
treaty. Did you ever see that treaty ? It has never been published. 
There is a reference to it in the President's message, but you cannot 
tind the treaty. Our minister, Mr. Boker, paid to Safvet Pasha, min- 
ister of foreign affairs, according to this account, 54,781 francs for 
himself and other Turkish officials to run a treaty through the Sub- 
lime Porte, [Laughter.] Now, what does that mean? You honest 
republicans ought to understand it. Omne ignoium pro maf/)}ifwo est. 
[Laughter.] Just l()ok at this item, the last one in this bill: "Four 
cake-bowls, round feet, style of Louis XVI, foliage-handles, with 
birds ; four silver bowls, scalloped border, assorted to match center- 



19 

piece; four cast bay-trees, cliiBeled on the castings; chiseled garlands- 
Hat channel, chiseled, in the center a bouquet of chiseled flowers, o-ilt 
and gold bottom, 3,777 francs." The Avhole thing was "chiseletl." 
[Great laughter.] Certainly it was; but I should like to know who 
else was chiseled. [Laughter. J 

Now let us look at the other items. Let me read this French. I 
wish I could do it better, but I never could understand English well 
enough in this House. [Laughter.] If the gentleman will only re- 
meniber his wrongly quoted motto, " Omne ignotum pro magnifico est," 
I will read him only one item to satisfy that motto. [Laughter.] 
Here is the bill rendered to our State Department from Mr. lio'ker by 
" M. Manaiiian, fahrkfuit joaiUier, rue de Ix'tchelicu, No. 41, doit 21. son 
excellence Monsieur Boker, Paris, le 6 juin l.-;75." [Laughter.] That 
means that Mr. Boker is excellent; and so he is. But his bill does 
not look so excellent. It amounts to 19,700 francs. And it is settled— 
" Pour acquit, Paris, le 8 juin 1875, 21. 2Iana)iian." Here are some of 
the items : "jSjnngle decravate, f era chei-al,2)ier res varices, 4,000 francs." 
L J you know what that is, gentlemen from the "West ? [Great lauo-h- 
ter.] My friend from New England [Mr. Seelye] knows what it°is. 
It is a pin for a cravat in the form of an iron horse, with various stoces 
set in it. [Laughter.] Four thousand francs. Nearly a thousand dol- 
lars for that locomotive, put as a breastpin in the cravat of a son of Saf- 
vet Pasha, the minister of foreign affairs. Perhaps he gave it to one of 
thehouris in his harem. Here there is another item, ".3 Z^owfoHSfZe chemise 
en hriUiants, 4,000 francs." That is, three shirt-buttons. [Laughter.] 
Yes, let me say boldly, three shirt-buttons. [Continued laughter.] 
How will our hard- worked mechanics and fanners like these items ? 
Well, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen say that we laugh this bill out of court. 
We do not mean that. We simply mean to show up, after the modest 
and logical manner of the reductio adahsurdum, precisely how you have 
conducted the best-conducted Department in your Government. If 
this is done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry ? If they 
can do this in a respectable Department, presided over by an ex-o-ov- 
eruor and an Ex-Senator from New York, a distinguished maia^ an 
honest man, and do this without accountability, what they will do in 
the Indian Department, God only knows. [Laughter.] 

GREECE AXD ITS DAXCES. 

Now, gentlemen, I will go to Greece, although there is hardly a 
grease spot left ! [Laughter.] However, there is something very 
interesting in connection with Greece, which I would like to refer to. 
I do not think it has been exhausted altogether. The gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Spkixger] anticipated me a little, as I was the first 
man to find out the interesting letters which he has quoted. My 
friend Judge Holmax also anticipated me, but he did not find, read, 
nor comment on the most interesting epistles. 

Here is one : 

Legation of the United States, 
Athens, March 8, 1875. (Received April 5.) 

Sm : A magnificent ball took place at the palace on the 3d instant. On that oc- 
casion the American minister had the honor to be selected to lead a contra-dance 
with the queen. 

A GnECI.VN MINISTRY DEFENDED. 

Now that is something that I like. It makes me wish to defend in 
one sense the minister to Greece. I will defend anybodv that has 
been so abused as this minister. Why what do we not owe to Greece ? 
Think of it! The land where " burning Sappho loved and sung," 
and all the rest of Byron's fine ode, which you, Mr. Chairman, rehearsed 



20 

in vour boybooil. Think of Athens— the eye of Greece, and the Pi- 
raus which has been called the " eyesore of Greece." Tlunk of the 
arts of war and peace which Greece illustrated two thousand years 
'ao-o ' Tliink of Marathon and Salamis, and the " ships by thousands" 
w"hich used to lay below, but which do not lay around there at all 
now especially with our starry flag at the mast! Think of Ther- 
raopyhc and her three hundred, of the Pyrrhic i)halans and Anacreon, 
Suli's rock and Suuium's marbled steep ; and then, swan-like, die for 
love of Greece, after Byron's draught of Samian wine ! Think of the 
Acropolis. Think of those old heroes that modern Greeks name their 
children after— Eschvlus, Thersites, Agamemnon, and Ulysses— never 
forget Ulysses, [laughter]— Epaminondas, and Pericles, and Sopho- 
cles and Alcibiades, and Themistocles, and Euripides, and all the 
otlier DD's belonging to the early daysof ancient Greece. [Laughter.] 
Yet, sir, as my friend from Indiana [Mr. Holman] well said, our 
representatives, when they go to Greece, go to the tomb of departed 
o-reatness. Greece gave art, science, logic, and poetry to the ages. 
She is entitled to a minister from the United States of America, not 
on account of any special living people that are there, or any special 
commerce which they have with us, for they only send us, I believe, 
from two to ten thousand pounds of Zante currants every year; but 
Greece has a nomadic population of goat-herds, and we ought to im- 
prove on a certain kind of goat that we have in this country. [Laugh- 
ter.] 

IDEAL GEEECE AND REAL AMEKICA. 

Is there here any man who will not assist us to protect and raise 
Greece to her ancient fame? Let him read Clay and Webster, if not 
Plato and Aristotle. Let him read the catalogue of the Homeric 
heroes ! True, her streams are dried up, her soil barren, her olive-trees 
cut up by the roots for fuel, and her very grass made the food of her 
nomadic'goats; but is it not Greece? Some cynic may ask before 
voting api)i(>priations for our minister, who honors the dead past and 
the givat heroes of that dead past, " What is Cithera's isle to the grass- 
hopper-despoiled West ? What is Milos, from whence the famous 
statue of Venus came, or Salamis with the fame of Themistocles, when 
I^Iississippi is under the ban and its plantations are overgrown with 
sedge-grass ? What the Piraus, where Socrates questioned the sailors, 
or what the academy under whose olive-trees the divine Plato sat 
while the bees of Hymottus settled on his lips, when the Texas border 
is ravaged by greasers and American cattle driven to Cortina's ranches 
by the thousand ? What are Morea's hills, with their golden and pur- 
ple sunsets, when beyond our sunset, contractors cheat the Govern- 
ment and Indians on meat and flour ? What the violet-wreathed city 
of Minerva, when in the great metropolis of New York, 'farther 
west,' the tenement-houses teem with skeleton starvelings? Let im- 
agination paint in rainbow colors the verdureless and yellow isles of 
Greece and sing them again in Byron's muse, but what are these to 
the demoralized and overflowed bacon of Alabama? When there is 
sung the glories of Bacchus and the mazy dance of the Bacchantes, 
who is to tell the mysteries of the crooked juices of the maize of Illi- 
nois, Wisconsin, and Missouri ?" [Laughter.] 

And if, further, the same cynic asks why King George of Greece plays 
■with his pet birds while the bandits prowl, plunder, and murder ; if 
it is said that Greece is the land of ruins, brigands, and beggars, and 
the little kinglet of Schleswig-Holsteiu is held on his throne by other 
powers, may we not respond, " It is Greece, the Greece of Aristotle and 
Homer, to which we send expensive embassadors ?" 



21 

We ought to go f urtlier in oar prido and protection for this grave 
of greatness. We ought to bring out of the ruins of the Acropolis 
some of those rare^Yorks of art that were left by Lord Elgin when he 
surre])titiously carried off so many to the British Museum. I plead as 
well for art as for the poor inhabitants of Greece. They ought to be 
in some way or other protected by our minister. [Laughter.] 

SASIOA. 

There are many new members here who probably do not know that 
two years ago we had an Executive Document, No. 54 of the second 
session of the Forty-second Congress, sent here by a Colonel Stein- 
berger, who went to what is called the Navigator Islands. He was 
on a special mission from our Government. I do not know just what 
it was for. Perhaps there was a land job in it. Omne 'ujiwtum pro 
mirifico. [Laughter.] But he went out to these islands, and there he 
was soon baud and glove with King Lunalilo. He is now premier. 
There he is now, sitting under the bread-fruit trees, with the little 
monkey clinging with prehensile grip to their limbs, and he (I do not 
mean the monkey) wrapped around with the star-spangled banner of 
our country; only seventy-five hundred miles from San Francisco, 
eight thousand miles from China, and folir thousand miles from Juan 
Fernandez! Thereour banner floats! [Laughter.] 

O, how proud we Avere when we knew that oiu- banner was floating 
over those basaltic rocks, washed by the waves as they rolled over coral 
reefs, with fishes among them of all kinds and colors ! Then to think 
that away off, where no good man had ever gone, except some of the 
Botany Bay shipwrecked convicts to convert the natives to our relig- 
ion — how beautiful it was iu this centennial year to feel that General 
Grant had sent out Colonel Steinberger to bring those islands within 
our own influence and confederacy! If we can do so much for such 
people who are so far oft", why not jump from Samoa sixteen thousand 
miles to Greece, and there revive through our diplomacy its ancient 
glories under our centennial tutelage. [Laughter.] 

GREECE RESUMED. 

In Greece we have a minister whom I like. I do not want to see 
him dismissed. He is a man that can dance a contra-dance with the 
Queen, and such a queen as Queen Olga — a grand duchess of Kussia! 
And Russia may almost be called the leading power of Europe. We 
should b« proud to thiuk of such a minister ! How did they dance it ? 

Ilands across and down tlie middle, 
To tho tune of flute and the fiddle. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Chairman, I have seen much xiromiscuous dancing. Byron re- 
fers to the Pyrrhic dances of classic Greece, but that dance is obso- 
lete. I have seen the Kabyles iu Northern Africa with their strange 
swaying dances. I have seen some dancing in the aisles of this House 
that forcibly reminded me of the Dervislies of the East. I have seen 
some ravishing dancing by the senoritas of Seville. 

But, sir, I pause. We have here a gentle professor, (Mr. Moxeoe,) 
at one time a very good professor at Oberlin, and a good man. He 
is or was a very religious man. He is well educated, but did he Ivuow 
when he was speaking for Greece and its minister the other day and 
quoting its history — did he know that our minister there had been 
dancing a contra-dance ? Did he know that he was thus dese( rating 
the old religious Presbyterian principles ? No, sir, I repudiiite such 
an idea. How can he vote against Greece in this bill f [Laughter.] 



22 

DU'LOHATIC EATIXG, AND DKINKIXG. AXU LIUESS. 

Sir the letter wliichtlie gentleman from Illinois sent up to be read 
Tvas not exactly read by tlie Clerk in the proper tones. I proceed to 
read it through : . . .. ^ 

The spacious aalons were filled at half past nine, ami the festivities continued 
until half past five in the morning. The arraugeiueiits throughout were of the 
mo,t ad ,ir able character. An elahorate supper for ei-ht hundred guests was laid 
in the r..N.d salle A man,,cr and in the two large adjoining rooms while the minis- 
ters of state and the .lii'loinatic corps were entertained by the King and Queen m 
the beautiful pri%ate apartments of their majesties. 

I would like to know what they had to cat on that festive occa- 
sion. What did they drink ? Was it champagne or was it Burgimdy ? 
Did they have imported from Spain the rare Montillado ? Did they 
have Eeudishcimcr, or did they have Hockheimer or some other 
" heimer" from the Ehiue ? [Laughter.] What were they drinking ? 
Was it the Viu D'Asti fiom Italy or Tokay from Hungary? What 
was their menu f Was it drawn from Apicius or the mouth othcers 
of Luciillus? Was it inspired by Brillat Savarin or Delmonico 1 1 
think some man on the republican side of the House who is interested 
in retrenchment ought to have the question raised and inquiry made 
as to what was going on on that occasion in respect to the edibles and 
drinking ; for I hold that the first duty of an American diplomat is 
to driuk'nothing but pure old American Bourbon whisky. [Laughter. ] 

Moreover, the utility of this wonderful diplomatic system which I 
am now defending, for I think it will prove of great utility, is the 
right to have inquiry as to the peculiar diplomatic dress our minister 
wore when he danced with the Queen of Greece. 

Did he wear a spike-tailed coat ; were his hands covered with grace- 
ful kids; were they of the Alexandrine pattern, and was his hair 
parted in the middle? [Laughter.] How was the Queen dressed? 
How did she manage that white-satin dress so as not to take the color 
from her cheeks, as represented in another interesting dispatch ? We 
want to know all about it ; how long was her train; and, if not, why 
not? [Laughter.] 

ART AND GREECE. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I had the other day a little troublesome matter 
with my friend from Maine [Mr. Hale] as to which I wish to express 
my regret. I calledhim by an endearing epithet, but I felt a little bad 
about it. I went to the Corcoran Art Gallery on Satiu'day to relieve 
mvself from this feeling. 

I never felt the necessity of keeping a minister at Greece until I 
walked, thoughtful, silent, among the mutilated plaster casts of the 
Corcoran Gallery on Saturday. There were orators without lungs, 
statesmen without brains, soldiers without arms, and Venuses with- 
out robes. [Laughter.] Here was a torso Demosthenes and a one-eyed 
Homer; there was a Theseus garroting a spavined Centaur. The 
gentleman from Kentucky will understand what a spavined Centaur 
is. [Laughter.] All about were the fauns, satjTS, ApoUos, and Di- 
anas which Greece gave to art and art to the ages. Although the only 
art of modern Greece consists in the ransoming of travelers from brig- 
ands, and the farming out of revenues for the sick man of the Levant, 
and feeding goats. Yet that is a strong reason for a minister to look 
after art, brigands, and revenue. 

If the liritish Queen — whose empire is based on the wisdom and the 
rocks of ages, and whose star and course of empire is eastward through 
her newly acquired Suez Canal to her hundreds of millions in India, 
and wliose footsteps of empire are marked at Malta, Corfu, and in 



23 

the isles of Greece — could not protect her suhjects from brijjaudage 
and murder withiu sight of the Acropolis, does it not Ijecome our 
duty, as the mighty limb of lier magnificent trunk, to throw onr 
shadow over that sterile soil where Marathon looks on the sea! Is 
not this our boundeu duty this centennial year? Are we not invit- 
ing all the nations to our carnival of industry and, jubilee of freedom. 
What would that interesting occasion be without a wooden horse 
from Greece witliin thy gates, O city of Brotlierly Love ! 

Moreover, do we not reach oiittootlier isles than those of Greece and 
other lauds remote ? Does not Massachusetts, througb an honored 
sou and an ex-member of Congress, give law to the realm of King 
Kalakaua? Has not our vessel, wi;l; our proud starry flag, borne a 
Pennsylvanian, Colonel Steinbcrger, to the distant Samoau group 
of the southwestern seas, eight thousand miles from our coast, near 
the tropic of Capricorn '1 Has he not there eaten of the bread-fruit 
with the kings of the group and, a group of kings, made himself pre- 
mier over their councils aud king of the ex-Cannibal Islands '1 If 
we can do this in the isles of King Lunalilo, amid the ancient vesic- 
ular lava-beds, amagladaloids, and basalt, where, over coralline ledges, 
amid which disport fish banded and spotted with green and crim- 
son, the wild waves are singing our everlasting glory-hallelujah ; 
why may we not reach out from Pago-Pago and the slopes of Upolu 
and Savaii to the land where Homer ruled as his demesne aud Sappho 
sang her sad refrain to the ^i^gean, into whose bosom she siirang and 
from whose bosom her favorite deity arose. [Laughter.] 

If we can use the contingent fund, as we have, to reach Pago-Pago 
aud its interesting converts to polygamous Christianity, why may we 
not extend an enterprising rule and roving into that land where 
Pericles ruled, Demosthenes spoke, Sophocles sung, and even Paul 
preached? Did wo not last year, to gratify an Ohio member, appro- 
priate thousands for a new survey of Judea ? Aud, if so, why may 
not Mars Hill have its geologist and the Morca its photographs? 

GREEK COMMERCE. 

Gentlemen may tell us that we have no commerce with Greece, 
and therefore require no minister there. Gentlemen rnay say that 
our ships and clippers no longer plow the historic waves, rendered 
classic by the prows of Ulysses and the pinnaces of Agamemnon. True, 
our ship-building is a myth; but Greece is the land of myths. True, 
the decadence of our shipping calls for little or no men-of-war; but 
what an interesting study for our minister are the men of war who 
went out to take Troy forty-five hundi-ed years ago and besought and 
besieged that city till the young men went west ! But is it not a 
strong reason for the encouragement of our navigation? If we had 
our olden commerce, there would be no need of its fostering. We 
must have ancient Greece to teach ns the art of navigation aud revive 
our shipping ! 

By the latest returns up to September 30, 1875, for three months we 
had only two shijis, with eight sailors apiece, which cleared for Greece. 
It is not recorded that they ever returned. But no matter for that. 
Let us encourage emigration. During the past fifty-five years, from 
1821 to 1875, we had two hundred and eighty-three descendants of 
Epaminondas and Socrates come to our shores, being foirr persons aud 
four-fifths of a person on an average per annum, distributed from Pas- 
samaquoddy to Paso del Norte. Now, when immigration is falling oflt", 
it is high time to reach out the hand to the heroes of Thermopyla' and 



24 

Missolonglii. Let ns bring to onr sliores the honored scions — thus 
gloriously quoted by Mr. Kead, oiu- minister, in his dispatch, to wit: 
Mavrocordato, Kolokotroiiis, Botzaris, Capo d'Istria, and many more which long 
ago became honstliold words in America, have now in Greece living illustrations 
in the second audtliiid lii'iicrations. These representatives of a glorious past pace 
to-day beneath the paintings which tell in graphic ways their ancestors' heroic 
story. 

We can make Solons out of them when war does not summon them 
to its gory held ! 

I saw in the gallery remains of Greece iu plaster of Paris. There 
was Demosthenes ; and let me state here confidentially [laughter] 
that he bears a strong resemblance to my friend from Pennsylvania, 
[Mr. Kelley.] [Laughter. J And now I come back to the House 
of Eepresentatives I see that Greece is not dead ; that she is still a 
living Greece, living iu iilaster of Paris right iu the city of Washing- 
ton. 

I will go further. I think we ought to have a minister to all other 
obsolete and blase places. Why uot have a minister of the same rank 
at Herculaneum, at Pompeii, and at all those places to which we 
resort as a matter of course and curiosity? 

Mr. SPEINGER. To Nineveh. 

Mr. COX. Where ? 

Mr. SPRINGER. Nineveh. 

■ Mr. COX. Yes, to Niueveh, perhaps the most eligible situation on 
the globe. [Laughter.] I would prefer a consul to Nineveh for cer- 
tain reasons which I need not mention. [Renewed laughter.] 

TRirOLI, TUKKEV, AXD OUR MIXISTEK. 

That reminds me of something I intended to discuss. I was sad- 
dened to read in these dispatches that our friend Mr. Maynard had 
been rather snubbed by the State Department because of a little 
matter to which I will briefly call the attention of the House. It is 
our duty here as well to protect our absent members as those present, 
just as my friend from Indiana [Mr. HoLMA^^] protected Judge Bing- 
ham the other day in such an eloquent manner. I would protect Mr. 
Maynard from the harsh criticism passed upon him in one of these 
papers. How did the criticism upon him originate ? I will tell you. 
There is a sort of hermaphrodite coimtrv called Tripoli ; it does not 
know whether it is a part of Turkey or o/Egypt or of Algiers or of the 
Desert of Sahara, which is soon to be flooded. 

We have no minister there, but we have a consul-general, Mr. Vi- 
dal. Last year or year before last he wrote a dispatch, which was 
quoted in this House to show that our Protestant missionaries ought 
not to waste their time in Tripoli or in the territories of the oi harharoi 
of the Greeks. He said the place for Protestant propagandism was 
in Bulgaria. The old New York Presbyterian Observer came out and 
read this consul a lesson. It said: "Why do you as a consul of the 
United States undertake to direct our missionary enterprises ? What 
18 that to you? Where do you get your power?" Mr. Vidal had 
urged that there were a great many slave-traders bringing slaves from 
Soudan and taking them to Constantinople and putting them in the 
harems of these bashaws of many tails. This brought Mr. Vidal into 
all sorts of trouble, and this book shows that he retired from his con- 
sulate andhis companions to a little place remote from the city and near 
the sea. One day a Turkish sailor wended his way up to his kitchen 
to light his cigarette. Mr. Vidal, with that patriotism which becomes 
an American abroad, proud of his flag although it covers no com- 
merce, rushed for that sailor and tripped him up. He had the spii-it 



25 

of Decatur wbo cut out the Philadelphia from that port. But the 
sailor stood up to Vidul and a contest eusued. He rushed to Malta, 
appealed to Mr. Maynard, and Mr. Mayuard appealed to "Washington. 
But I must be precise. Here is the reproof, -which it hurts my heart 
to reproduce. On page 131G of the diplomatic papers, " Mr. Fish to Mr. 
Maynard," under date of November 9, 1875, writes thus, and harshly: 

This subject was fully discussed in my former dispatch, and I allude particularly 
to it in this connection in order that you may reco<;cnize its sifcniticance and the im- 
portance of being controlled in the settlement of this afTaii-, and in all oui' negotia- 
tions connected therewith, exclusively by our treaty with Tripoli. 

For these reasons it would have been better if, in your note to Safvet Pasha, you 
had not referred to our treaty with the Ottoman government as secuiing our con- 
sul against the indignity of proceedings against liim by the local authorities for 
an alleged misdemeanor. The "most favored nation " clause in our treaty with 
Tripoli secures to the United States consul all the rights and jirivileges accorded 
to the representatives of other foreigu powers. Having a])pialed to our treaty 
with Tripoli, we cannot, in the settlement of this question, take our treaty with 
the Porte at all into consideration. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Many Members. Go on! Go on ! 

The CHAIRMAN. If .there be no objection, the time of the gen- 
tleman will be extended. 

There was no objection. 

Mr. COX. I thank the House for its indulgence. Mr. Maynard 
suited the Turkish mission better than any man I know. He had 
the grave, deliberate, and majestic manner which we are told by 
Th^ophile Gautier (in his volume on Constantinople, just issued, page 
156) belongs to the Turk, who never hurries himself, except in the 
presence of death. How sad he must have been at the treatment 
which his first little efibrt at diplomacy received from the State De- 
j)artment, his first efibrt to put things into shape for this consulate that 
had no commerce to take care of and was always in trouble. I see 
him as he retires to the cemetery of Scutari. There, amid the grave- 
stones that are ca^iped with the turban of Moslem, he sits amid the 
ashes of despair. 

With all the propriety of deportment, he is sitt ing cross-legged sipping 
his Mocha and smoking his chibouk, until addressed by some bashaw 
of his acquaintance in these words: " How is it with you, my bashaw 
from Tennessee ? Thou lookest sad to-day. What has gone amiss 
with thee, my brother ? " "I have heard from the great mogul of 
New York, and he has blamed me for that which I have written, and 
I am unhappy therefor." " Turn your eyes up to these cypress-trees 
which weep with you, and with the dead near yoii ; cast your eyes 
toward Mecca ; bow your head with your fez cap three times, and yon 
maybe happy. Bishalla, go bragh! Brother Mayuard; Mahomet is 
his ijrophet. Be just unto all men; sin not. Write not home any- 
thing encouraging about radicalism or Ku-Klux ; be honorable, be 
just, and you will be happy. Allah is great, and Mahomet is his 
prophet. Rememberest thou not that one star goeth around another 
star, and that a star with a long tail swishes around the sun and goes 
and comes at intervals ; comes in and goes out like eternal day and 
eternal night ? Let the star with the long tail spin ! Allah is great, 
and Mahomet is his prophet." [Laughter.] 

And thus our friend will be consoled. 

HOW TO REVn'E C05IJIERCE. 

Why, gentlemen, to end this speech and to end it at once, you can- 
not revive commerce by your petty, rascally consular system, as my 



26 

frieud from Illinois [Mr. Springer] has developed it to you to-day. 
You have to make a cause for it here. Commerce does uot depeud ou 
consuls. Commerce depends on your laws, or rather the repeal of 
your laws. Take off your burdens ; take oft' your taxes. Then com- 
merce will come ; and the great art of ship-building, now almost 
obsolete in this country, so that there is uo more apprenticeship to 
it, will revive again, and with it the returns which commerce always 
gives to nations. 

But we have other and greater elements than that of consular rela- 
tions, connected with commerce. My friend from Ohio [Mr, Gar- 
field] in his grand survey of the Pacific referred to them. We have 
the elements of steam and electricity, drawing nations closer together; 
Stephenson and Bessemer helping on land ; Watt and Fulton on the 
sea; Morse everywhere. Why do they help commerce? They call 
attention to the source of supply from the source of demand and vice 
versa. In Chicago the price of grain in Liverpool and London is a 
matter of hourly intelligence. Why, sir, in Utica, New York, where 
there is a cheese exchange, every time a man brings a cheese into Utica 
he looks at the bulletin to see the price of gold or cheese in Liverpool. 
We are drawing the world together. Iron aided by steam, with its 
great arms, is breasting the mobile elements of the ocean while elec- 
tricity is sending its message. 

I can remember going, years ago when I was a boy, to the district 
of my honorable friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] to look at a 
new paper-machine there. It was the wonder of the time. My father 
had built the first paper-mill west of the Alleghany Mountains. He 
followed the old plan of making paper in molds, by vats. I worked 
as a paper-maker before I became a blacksmith or a Congressman. 
[Laughter.] I understood thoroughly that business. I went there 
and I saw that machine. By the old hand-process about one hun- 
dred pounds of paper was made \)<iT day ; now a machine will turn 
out two thousand pounds in the same time. A machine will convert 
a stream of fluid pulp into paper, dry and polish it, and cut it into 
sheets ; the time consumed in converting the pulp is two minutes — 
the old process was eight days. Steam, electricity, paper — newspapers 
and all — are to-day revolutionizing and reviving commerce. But for 
these elements all your consulates amount to nothing. 

It is said by philosophers that the smallest atom — even an atom so 
small that Tyndall could not express it ; an atom so small that it has 
no upper nor under side — it is said that even the tiny love drop in the 
bottom of the little Alpine flower down amid the glaciers has its effect 
upon the rings of Saturn, and perhaps upon some other " rings " that 
I need not mention in this community. [Laughter.] But whatever 
may bei ts effect, it is no more in the great forces of the universe as 
connected with our practical life than is j-our little consul in the 
revival of commerce, trade, and navigation. 

The Hauseatic League made commerce without consuls. The Ve- 
netian argosies and the Dutch ludiaman carried for and enriched 
their country without consuls. Transiiortation is the secret. It 
brings the prairie to the seaboard. It has made for us seventy-four 
thousand miles of railroads, with a gross receipt of five hundred 
millions. When it is rash and grasping, as in 1873, it made its tax on 
cereals to you of the West — at five cents a bushel, $45,000,000. 

Learn from England. Encourage iron and steam. Take off your 
great taxes and the multitude of them. Give encouragement to our 
people to sell abroad. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt] 
spoke about our cotton trade reviving. I know it is reviving to some 



m 



27 



extent ; but last year $75,000,000 worth of cotton was sold by England 
where we should have had the market. We are, it is true, selling some 
abroad now, and I hope we shall sell more. If our tariff bill passes, 
with the aid of steam, with the aid of electricity, with the aid of fair 
dealing, with a reconciled country North and South, East and West, 
and with the blessing of a centennial year, and divine goodness, we 
may have another kind of jubilee in which there will be an inter- 
dependence of men and nations and an independence among men from 
bad government everywhere on our star. [Applause.] 



16 S '12 



